Philippines Mission Trip
Summer 2023
Last summer, in 2023, a group of us went to the Philippines for a week-long mission trip. First, we flew to California Irvine for a couple days of training and prep work. Then, when we arrived in the Philippines, we were welcomed by Niko, a member of the Christian group we were partnering with, SMO, near the city of Bacolod. We drove down to the church where we we used as kind of our home base for the majority of our time in the Philippines. It was reassuring to see that, across the globe, there were hospitable people willing to welcome us and provide us with a place to stay and food to eat simply because we’re connected through the Gospel.
We spent a lot of our time goin to local high schools to talking to youth at schools about the Gospel, our lives in America, and topics like social media, as well as put on programs for them.
Here’s a funny moment I remember: after we finished sharing the gospel and talking about America at a school, our group was taking photos with the students and people kept calling me Luka (the dude that plays for the Mavs Basketball team), when in reality I was just a 5’6”, Caucasian-Asian 19 year old. I hope we stick in the memories of these students even if it’s only because we’re from America. I pray that God was able to communicate his love for them through us.
There were a lot of trip highlights: from playing chess with the pastors, hearing peoples’ stories, drinking coffee at 10 pm, singing, eating meals together, and learning about their culture. There were also low lights: like the physical struggles of some of our team getting some food poisoning while there being in a forign country and some of the sicknesseveryone on our team got sick. However, I’m glad that I got the chance to step outside of my comfort zone, grow closer to people not only from Seattle, Chicago, and the Philippines, and see God at work.
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